This is a review of the Carnival Spirit - 8 night cruise departing Sydney on the 5th of December 2013 and visiting Noumea, Mystery Island and Isle of Pines. This is my 4th cruise, 2nd time on Carnival. The first being in 2009 in Baja California. The other 2 were with RCCL in the Bahamas. My first experience with Carnival was un-traumatic enough to make me want to sail with them again, but I was in for some surprises this time around.
CHECK IN JOYS
Ok, lets get this out of the way first up. The absolute schmozzle that was boarding on Thursday 5th of December 2013. Apparently the computer systems went down and everyone had to be checked in manually. We were supposed to get on at 12.30pm. We queued. After 1 hour waiting and no explanation for the delay we finally made it to the check-in counter. They told us to come back at 3pm! So we queued for nothing! So off we went to the Rocks to fork out money for lunch, as we'd no longer be getting fed on the ship. Meanwhile Carnival Australia's genius social media minions were busy deleting unfavourable posts from their Facebook page made by frustrated passengers.